Director: Stephen Herek
Screenplay: Chris Matheson, Ed Solomon
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, George Carlin, Terry Camilleri, Dan Shor, Tony Steedman, Amy Stoch, Hal Landon Jr, J. Patrick McNamara
Country: USA
Running Time: 90 min
Year: 1989
BBFC Certificate: PG
Before I start my review I have to be honest and say that Bill &Tedâs Excellent Adventure has great sentimental value to me as my brother and I used to watch it constantly as kids. We used to know it off by heart and quoted it endlessly. So, my ability to objectively review this without a haze of nostalgia affecting my opinion is nigh-on impossible.
Bill & Tedâs Excellent Adventure started life as a comedy skit surrounding the titular characters, devised and performed by college buddies Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon. They enjoyed the characters so much they knocked together an idea for a script back in 1984 and sent it out to the Hollywood studios, in the hope that someone would pick it up. It eventually got snagged by Warner Brothers who dropped it a little while later, but their involvement helped the writers hone the script, including changing the original title and some other details. It was originally going to be called Bill & Tedâs Time Van but with Back to the Future out in 1985, they wanted to change the time travel device. Plus, it was a pretty weak title to be honest.
The project later ended up with Dino de Laurentiis and his De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG), who funded the fairly low-budget production. The shoot was reportedly a blast, with the young cast and crew hitting it off together. However, DEG went bankrupt while the film was in post-production. Director Stephen Herek and the producers desperately tried to show the rough-cut around town and managed to get it picked up by Nelson Entertainment and Orion Pictures, who got it out to cinemas after the makers were worried itâd end up airing only on cable TV or being shelved completely.
Itâs a good job Bill & Tedâs Excellent Adventure did hit cinemas as it proved to be a surprise hit. It made $40.4 million in the US alone and was a cultural phenomenon, with Bill and Tedâs âlanguageâ becoming commonplace with teens in America and beyond. It spawned both animated and live-action TV series, video games, a comic and also a sequel in 1991, with Bill & Tedâs Bogus Journey. Now, over 30 years later (God that makes me feel old), itâs getting a second follow-up, with Bill & Ted Face the Music, due for release at the end of August (maybe).
To celebrate the latest sequel, Studiocanal are releasing the film that started it all in a newly remastered edition on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK. Realising I hadnât seen the film since wearing out my taped-off-TV VHS copy, I eagerly snapped up a Blu-ray to review the film.
Bill & Tedâs Excellent Adventure centres around Bill S. Preston Esquire (Alex Winter) and Ted Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves), a couple of high school students who are in a band together called Wyld Stallyns. Theyâre also in danger of flunking out of school, particularly if they fail a vital history assignment. On top of this, if they do flunk out of school, Tedâs dad is sending him straight to a military academy in Alaska, so the friends will be separated and the band will come to an end.
The pair grab a pile of history textbooks to attempt to cram for the next dayâs report, but Bill and Ted are not the sharpest tools in the box, so their chances of passing look slim.
However, luck comes in the surprising form of Rufus (George Carlin) who has come from the future and appears out of the blue in his time-travelling phone booth. He explains to Bill and Ted that, in the future, their music will lead to world and intergalactic peace, bringing harmony across the universe. Itâs vital that they pass that history report, so he lends them a time-machine so they can travel back in time and collect world figures to be part of their project. The present-day clock ticks at the normal rate though, so they must get the job done quickly, ready to present to the rest of the school the next day. Of course, things go wrong along the way, to make this more difficult than theyâd have hoped.
Thereâs always a worry that a film you love as a youngster wonât be as good as you remember when you watch it many years later. However, I still had an absolute blast with Bill & Tedâs Excellent Adventure and I do believe itâs a better film than many give it credit for.
For one, Matheson and Solomonâs script is fantastic. The dialogue might sound dumb on the surface, with Bill and Tedâs unique surf-dude/Valley-girl hybrid way of speaking, but there are actually a lot of witty and very funny lines in there, riffing on the central pairâs poor knowledge of history and unique outlook on life. I think their style is best described in the words of David and Nigel from This is Spinal Tap, as treading âa fine line between stupid and cleverâ.
Also key to the success of the film is the chemistry of Bill and Ted. Some big names were reportedly in the running for the roles (or at least they became big), such as River Phoenix, Sean Penn, Brendan Fraser and Pauly Shore, but itâs hard to imagine anyone other than Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter filling their shoes now. They nail the mixture of clueless and lovable and work perfectly together. During the production there were worries, and Iâve also heard some criticise the film for it on release, that Bill and Ted are too similar to make a strong duo, but I disagree. I think there are subtle differences between them. Bill is a little brighter than Ted, but Ted has a little more heart. If they went too far in differentiating the pair, I donât think theyâd have made such convincingly close friends.
That friendship is part of another thing I love about the film, itâs tone. Most teen movies are cynical and focus around sex or drugs/alcohol. Bill & Ted has none of this (or at least very little – Billâs step-mum is young and attractive and the film milks this for all itâs worth). Instead, it presents characters that are incredibly nice to everyone. They have a sunny outlook to everything, only getting mildly melancholic when things are really against them. They always quickly bounce back though and their friendly attitude is infectious, leading to a film thatâs utterly charming.
The time travel aspects donât get as mind-boggling as in some other entries into the genre but good use is made of the concept, particularly in a prison escape scene towards the end (though that trash can bit makes little sense in terms of how itâs physically set-up). Numerous moments defy logic, but in a high-concept film from the 80s, you wouldnât expect or even want everything to make perfect sense.
The film has dated a touch perhaps. The special effects are âof their timeâ and obviously telephone booths are little seen nowadays. There are also a couple of lines that might be frowned upon now (notably the âfagâ reaction to Bill and Ted hugging), but, for the most part, this is still as much fun as it was 31 years ago.
I canât escape my nostalgic love for Bill & Ted, Iâm afraid, so I have to give it a perfect score, even if I could pick out flaws here and there. I do genuinely believe itâs a great film though. Itâs witty whilst seeming dumb and focussed around two of the most lovable characters in cinema history. Your taste for high concept, zany 80s adventures will be key to your enjoyment, but I think thereâs enough sharp humour, exuberance and warmth in the film to win over even the hardest of hearts.
Bill & Tedâs Excellent Adventure is out on 10th August on 4k UHD, Blu-Ray and DVD in the UK, released by Studiocanal. I watched the Blu-ray version and it looks and sounds fantastic. Detail and colours are rich and the print is as clean as a whistle without losing its filmic look.
The disc is loaded with special features too:
– Audio Commentary with Writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon
– Audio Commentary with star Alex Winter and Producer Scott Kroopf
– Time Flies When You’re Having Fun! – A Look Back at a Most “Excellent Adventure”
– Score! An Interview with Guitarist Steve Vai
– The Original Bill & Ted – interview with Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon
– Air Guitar Tutorial with Bjorn Turoque
– From Scribble to Script – extensive notes and script excerpts from the original âBill and Tedâs Time Vanâ story
– Linguistic Stylings of Bill & Ted
– Hysterical Personages of Bill & Ted
– Episode from âBill & Tedâs Excellent Adventuresâ animated television series
– Radio Spots
– Stills and Artwork
A lot of this material was included in the previous Blu-ray release and a fair amount of that stuff is a bit throwaway (like the air guitar video, âLinguistic Stylingsâ and âHysterical Personagesâ) but the âOriginal Bill and Tedâ interview is very good. The âScribble to Scriptâ feature is fantastic too. This presents 120 pages of notes, treatments and script excerpts from Matheson and Solomonâs original idea for the film. Itâs great to see what they originally thought up to see how it changed. It would have been a notably different film.
The Steve Vai interview is odd, in that he scored Bogus Journey but had nothing to do with Excellent Adventure, so I donât know why they added it here. The inclusion of the animated TV series episode is a nice touch though and brought back memories, though it hasnât held up nearly as well as the film.
The new material is stronger. The two commentaries are excellent in particular. Yes, a number of the anecdotes are repeated elsewhere on the disc, but thereâs still plenty of new information in the tracks. Each pair has a strong chemistry too and the film clearly means a lot to all of them, so itâs enjoyable to hear them talk fondly about the experience of making it.
The âTime Fliesâ doc is backslap-heavy but fairly lengthy (just over an hour) so covers a lot of ground and was made fairly recently, so itâs interesting to see how everyone has aged and how they see the film after time has passed.
So, a fantastic package all round that comes highly recommended to anyone that enjoys the film.
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